Recommend me some reading matter

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ruffers
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Yes, indeed, ruffers is off on holiday next week and is looking forward to doing sod all for a few days. Please be so kind as to suggest a few tomes to work through by the pool...

To give you an idea what I usually read I'm currently finding Cloud Atlas quite good. I guess I'm looking for holiday junk with a modicum of intelligence.
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MrChris
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Dave Eggers, and you shall know our velocity
Dirk Wittenborn, fierce people
Jonathan Franzen, the corrections

All of these are absolutely top-class, page-turners at the same time as being very intelligent and funny too. The Eggers book is about two guys travelling the world trying to give away a ton of money they've inherited to worthy people, which is a bit more complicated than they expect. The Wittenborn book is fantastic - a plebby teenager in the 70s is absorbed into the dysfunctional community of the super-rich in America, complete with skeletons in the closet, drugs, violence and incest. The Franzen book is about a contemporary US family unravelling at the seams, and is also, as with all of Franzen's book, a bit of a blast at american corporate life. I'd strongly recommend any of them, although someone else might come up with some tempting alternatives too.
Chris

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Again and again and again...
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some of my favourite books of all time:

Paulo Coelho:
The Alchemist: A Fable About Following Your Dream

Louis De Bernieres:
The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts
Senor Vivo and the Coca Lord
The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman

Philip Pullman:
"His Dark Materials" trilogy:
Northern Lights
The Subtle Knife
The Amber Spyglass

:notworthy:
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Ed Rhombus
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I enjoyed most of the Asterix books
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boudicca
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... you will ask...
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boudicca
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OR if you want something easier to digest... :innocent:

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:innocent: :wink:

sorry indrek! :kiss:
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nick the stripper
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One Who Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest is a jolly book.
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boudicca
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nick the stripper wrote:One Who Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest is a jolly book.
Is that "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" PLUS!?

*NOW WITH LONGER TITLE!*

:innocent:

Sorry, I'm just a smartarse. Ignore me, Nick.
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Debaser
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Ed Rhombus wrote:I enjoyed most of the Asterix books
By Toutatis!!

http://gb.obelix.com.fr/index1.html

I'm a total and utter sucker for these - even funny in different languages too. :notworthy: :notworthy:
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Francis
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More of a Tin Tin man myself.
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emilystrange
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@ debaser..'Asterix and Cleopatra' is my fave..

Gormenghast trilogy
Jane Austen
Ian Banks, esp. the wasp factory and espedair street
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ruffers
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emilystrange wrote:@ debaser..'Asterix and Cleopatra' is my fave..

Gormenghast trilogy
Jane Austen
Ian Banks, esp. the wasp factory and espedair street
I like the one with the pirates in it, is That Asterix & Cleopatra?

Ian Banks - good shout as/but I've read them all, although curiously I think Espedair Street is about the weakest..

Mr Men on holiday - I'vealready read it :lol:

Quiffy - I already read the first Philip Pullman one so could go further there, will check out the others.

Boudicca - thanks for the refresher on my google skills!

Mr Chris - all sound interesting, will also be checked out tomorrow lunchtime in WHSmith library

And I've never read One Flew Over... so good shout Nick.

Thanks for taking the time people.
Last edited by ruffers on 17 May 2005, 16:42, edited 1 time in total.
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emilystrange
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yes, the unlucky pirates! and artifis and edifis the architects..
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boudicca
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Yes, now in all seriousness (although I WAS serious about Mr. Serpent's book, if you can speak a word of Estonian GO BUY IT and make him rich ;D )... here are my recommendations -

On The Road - Kerouac... I mean seriously, if that book doesn't make you want to pack in yer "lounging-beside-the-pool" business and go out "digging" things in an amoral beatnik kinda way, then nothing will.

It made me aspire to becoming a hobo. 8) Really appeals. Didn't make me start enjoying jazz, though... :roll:

If you haven't read Notes From The Underground (Dostoyevsky) what have you been doing...

And if you can't dig an old classic like 1984 or Brave New World then there's something seriously wrong with you - I'm going to take "We" by Evagenii Zamiatin and "Darkness at Noon" by Arthur Koestler on my next relaxing jaunt.

Lovecraft maybe? I haven't got round to his stuff yet but I'm hoping to (do stop me people if this is a bad idea). What else... Kafka? I'm just talking about what I want to read more of now...

Ignore me and stick to the works of FS. :notworthy: :kiss:
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Brideoffrankenstein
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Iain M Banks (the sci-fi stuff)
never got on with his other stuff apart from The Wasp Factory
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Big Si
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"The Big Man" would like to recommend -

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Image

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canon docre
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I found TC Boyle's Water Music a sublime travel book. (You will find even the more modest accomodations truly luxurious..... :lol: )
In the Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad) or anything from Somerset Maugham, too.
Nothing can beat Kafka :notworthy: , although a bit more challenging then relaxing...
Lovecraft is overrated. (except in certain circles...)IMHO

Houellebecq "Platform", if you travel to asia...
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Silver_Owl
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Here are a few.....

Christopher Koch - Highways to a war
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASI ... 53-9570221

Douglas Coupland - Girlfriend in a coma
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASI ... 53-9570221

Anthony Keidis - Scar Tissue

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASI ... 53-9570221

Danny Sugarman - Wonderland Avenue
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASI ... 53-9570221

Irvine Welsh - Trainspotting
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASI ... 53-9570221

Charles Bukowski - Post Office
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASI ... 53-9570221
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nick the stripper
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One Who Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest - Now with longer title!

Last Exit to Brooklyn

Junky, Queer & Naked Lunch :notworthy:

atrocity museum - J.G Ballard

native son(unabridged) - Richard Wright :notworthy:

H.P Lovecraft: Tales (library of America.) - Canon Docre is correct, Kafka is better, but I'm a sucker for pulp.

Interview with the vampire - Ann Rice

Art of war

Clive Barker - books of blood - the hell bound heart

Charles bukowski - post office/woman/ham on rye/love is a dog from hell

The Doors of Perceptionby Aldous Huxley

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test - Tom Wolfe

High fidelity

Alice in Wonderland
Last edited by nick the stripper on 17 May 2005, 20:25, edited 2 times in total.
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ruffers
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I'm only going on holiday for a week.... :?
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nick the stripper
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ruffers wrote:I'm only going on holiday for a week.... :?
In that case just read Junky, Queer and Naked Lunch.

You should be able to read Junky and Queer in a day, then you will spend the rest of the week getting skull f***ed by Naked Lunch.
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sisxbeforedawn
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All to high brow for me, I took 3 Resident Evil books with me on holiday :D drinking free Zombies on the beach and reading about them :lol:
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nick the stripper wrote:...
atrocity exhibition- J.G Ballard
...
Apart from the above mistake, a rather fantastic list of recommendations there, Mr Stripper. Good to see some Bukowski, even if you missed out 'Factotum'.

I'd add 'Vurt' by Jeff Noon ("Too beautiful for bikers, too harsh for hippies") along with his other two Manchester-based books (Nymphomation and Pollen), plus "Foucault's Pendulum" by Umberto Eco, and since we're leaning heavily towards mid-twentieth century bohemia in everyone else's suggestions, you may as well as "Tropic of Capricorn" by Henry Miller.
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Thea
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Joolz Denby. Especially Stone Baby and Billie Morgan.
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Andie
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sisxbeforedawn wrote:All to high brow for me, I took 3 Resident Evil books with me on holiday :D drinking free Zombies on the beach and reading about them :lol:
:notworthy: :notworthy: :notworthy:


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